in Istanbul, a man named Kemal Delbe set on fire his former girlfriend Aylin Sozer, a lecturer at the Istanbul Aydin University, pouring a flammable liquid on her. Her murderer narrowly escaped lynching by Sozer's neighbours when taken in custody by the police.
Her case is indicative of the serious problem of femicide in Turkey, which the Islamist Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, recently tried to downplay saying that the murders of women in his country are exaggerated and that in 2020 there were only 234 women killed in Turkey and not 353 as the femicide watchdog "Counter Monument" documented.
Femicide is defined by the World Health Organisation by asking the question of "If the victim was a man, would he still be killed?" If the answer is no, it is femicide. What is causing concern is that the patriarchal Turkish society and both the right-wing and left-wing press views violence against women as something acceptable, frequently justifying the murder of women as "a matter of honour," or "crimes of passion."
Last November a women's rights group called "We want to Live Initiative" submitted to the Turkish Parliament 600,000 signatures they collected demanding that the Turkish authorities fulfil their duties to end violence against women and comply with the relevant European Convention and Turkey's Law no 6284 to protect the family and Prevent Violence against Women. The Initiative says:" We know that femicides and rapes are on the rise as male justice issues more verdicts awarding murderers with impunity and women who act in self-defense are punished."
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